- Hi, everyone.

Today, we're making baked apples.

I am excited to bring you this recipe.

It is delicious.

It is simple, and it's gluten free.

So sit back, relax, and join me for this episode of "The Baking Journal."

(easygoing country music) The first step for our baked apples is to make the topping.

So what we have here are a heaping, and I mean heaping, 1/2-cup of old fashioned oats into the bowl.

We have a 1/2 a cup of almond flour, which you could use regular flour if you like, but I just like the little extra flavor that the almond flour gives.

So that goes into the bowl.

We have a 1/3 a cup of brown sugar into the bowl.

We have also a heaping 1/3-cup of coarsely chopped pecans.

You can use walnuts.

You can use whatever nuts you have on hand.

You can leave them out if you don't particularly like nuts, but I do like the extra flavor that these nuts bring to our topping.

And then we also have in here, we have a 1/2 a teaspoon of salt, and 3/4 of a teaspoon of cinnamon into the mix.

And now I'm just gonna break up our brown sugar here, and kinda get everything mixed up (easygoing country music) nicely, get some of the lumps out.

Just give us a little stir here.

And to this mixture, we are adding four tablespoons of softened, unsalted butter.

And for that, I am just going to add it all into the mixture here, and nothing fancy.

But we are going to...

I'm going to remove my ring, sorry guys, and clean hands.

And I'm just gonna use my hands to get it all nicely incorporated.

You want this topping to be not kind of crumbly.

You want it to really kinda mix together.

You want it to clump at the end of the day, because that way, then, you'll be able to put it on top of your apples.

And, I mean, it'll make just a really nice topping, and you'll be able to get this delicious topping really nice and thick on top of your apples, which will make them oh so tasty.

So as you can see here, I'm just, you know, mixing that butter in.

It's going in pretty easily.

I'm not worried about over mixing this or anything.

It's not like it's going to make it tough, and I'm just gonna keep working it.

You can see here, see how it's clumping, which is exactly how I want it.

I think I'm ready here.

I need to get it off of my fingers as much as I can, 'cause I don't wanna waste any of this delicious topping.

And I do have some on the counter, but hey, if you guys have watched any of my other recipes and episodes, you know that I'm not the neatest baker all the time.

So here we have it.

Here's our topping.

And now we're gonna go on to prepare the apples.

(easygoing country music) So we've just finished our topping.

Now we're going to prepare our apples.

I am using, just to show you guys, this smaller pan.

You normally would use a larger pan.

You'd be able to fit maybe, you know, four, five apples, depending on the size, but because I'm only showing you how to prepare the apples, I've just got this tiny little pan, but these are so delicious that really you are going to want to make as many as you possibly can.

The topping, I will tell you, as we made it, will easily make three apples.

So six halves, as we are preparing 'em today.

So the first thing we're gonna do is just cut our apple in half, and the beauty of these baked apples, we don't have to peel 'em.

We're not really coring them.

It's a very simple preparation.

So here we have our two halves.

I am using this little corer.

It's a melon corer.

I think it might be a strawberry huller.

I'm not really sure, but it's got little teeth on it, which makes it easy to get the middle of the apple out.

And all I'm doing here is just basically, you know, making a nice little hole in my apple.

The deeper the hole you make, the more topping that you get to put in it.

So, you know, gee, I like the topping a lot, runaway seed, so I am pretty generous in my hole, as you can see here.

And then I'm just going to make a little V here.

Nobody really wants to eat the little end of the stem there.

So I'm just gonna make a little V, and slice out that top and bottom piece.

And I'm going to put it in my pan, and now to keep it from getting too brown before I am ready to bake this, all I have here is a tablespoon of lemon juice, freshly squeezed.

I added some water, and I'm just gonna take a brush, and I am going to brush the inside here.

I think I can hold it up so you guys can see.

I'm just brushing the exposed surface, the flesh of the apple.

It helps it to stay a little less brown while we're preparing the rest of our apples.

So let's put that aside here a second and prepare our other half.

Again, same thing.

I'm just gonna start coring.

Get out the seeds.

Get out the center of the apple that's not very tasty, and try to go as deep as I possibly can so that I can fill it with that delicious topping that we made.

(easygoing country music) I think that's good.

And, once again, I'm going to very carefully cut out that V section there that's not very tasty.

Same here.

Be very careful.

Sharp knife.

And then we're going to, again, brush this one with our lemon juice and water, get it nice and covered.

(easygoing country music) The lemon juice solution really doesn't add a lot of flavor, but it just does help the apple stay a nice color.

And now we've got them in our pan.

We are going to add just enough water to the bottom of our pan, because what we want to do now is we're going to put these in a preheated 350-degree oven for about 15 minutes, because we want our apples to begin to soften.

So I just put, you probably can't tell, but I maybe have an 1/8 of an inch of water in the bottom of this pan here.

And that really is just to kinda help build some steam in our pan.

I'm gonna cover it with foil here, and I'm going to put it in our 350-degree oven and let them soften up for about 15 minutes.

So these have been in the oven now for 15 minutes, and they are now getting soft.

Not quite there yet, but they are ready for our topping.

And I just love to put this topping on with my hands, just like how I mixed it.

Nothing fancy here, and that's why I like it to be really clumpy like this.

So all I'm gonna do is clump it in my hands and put it on our apples, and I'm gonna spread it all the way around, as you can see here.

(gentle acoustic music) And I like to get as much topping as I possibly can on each apple.

I'm holding back just a little bit, because I wanna make sure that each apple gets as much as I possibly can give it.

I don't wanna short any of my little apples here.

And you know what?

I mean, apples are just such an awesome dessert.

I mean, you can really get wonderful tasting apples almost any time of the year.

I know we think of apples as like a fall dessert, but honestly, I mean, it can be a delicious anytime dessert, and the other beauty, especially of these apples, I mean, they can be a dessert.

They can be for breakfast, and you don't have to feel guilty.

They can be a snack.

They can be for any time.

So I just really, really, really love this recipe.

All right, so now we've used all of our topping.

I've got it all nicely pressed onto our apple halves.

And now, here I have just four tablespoons of melted butter, and I'm just going to drizzle it over each one of our apples.

Why not give it some extra delicious flavor?

And then we've left our oven on, remember, 350, and we are going to put these apples back into the oven, uncovered this time.

And we are going to bake them for about another 20 minutes, but just keep an eye on 'em.

They might, you know, need about 25 minutes, but you don't want 'em to go too long.

You don't want them to get too brown or burn.

So I'm gonna put these aside, get them in the oven, but I wanna show you our finished apples.

Here they are.

Look at these beauties.

And when we come back, we'll give 'em a try.

(gentle acoustic music) So here we have our beautiful baked apple, and we're gonna give it a taste.

But before we do, we're gonna add a little bit of this delicious whipped creme fraiche.

I've added a little bit of vanilla bean to it, and some extra heavy cream, whipped it up.

Just gonna add a little dollop to the top of our baked apple, and give it a try.

Let's see here.

All right.

How do I dig in and get every bit of taste?

And as you can see, you guys, it's soft, but it's not mushy soft here.

And I'm just gonna take a bite here.

I wanna get every little bit, as much as I can of that delicious topping.

Mm.

So the apple still has its texture.

The creme fraiche gives it creaminess.

The topping has a delicious crunch and flavor.

The nuts add and extra element of texture.

You have got to try this.

It is really a very simple recipe, but delicious, and absolutely awesome.

Make sure you check it out on YouTube, or on CET's website, and I hope to see you soon.

Enjoy.

(gentle acoustic music)